


A Tradition Needs Two

by EmeraldSage



Series: The Holiday Collection [18]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Existing Relationship, Lots of Angst, M/M, Marriage, Prompt Day 18: Traditions, RusAmeHoliday, and memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:53:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8905789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldSage/pseuds/EmeraldSage
Summary: RusAme Holiday Prompt #18: TraditionsWhere a long-held tradition suddenly turns morose in the face of what seems like an inescapable loss.[Angst with a Happy Ending, because I'm incapable of writing bad endings when I'm feeling like shit]Rated Mature for Themes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if this one comes out really angsty. I've just had a really shitty day, and on top of a really stressful week, it's just been waaaay too much. This definitely has a happy ending, so prepare yourself emotionally. Maybe it'll be better if you go in knowing it...
> 
> I am incapable of making my characters suffer when I feel like shit. I just need the world to be happy with itself.
> 
> I'm sorry it's so short!

            It had turned into something of a tradition over all the years they’d been together.

            The first year, his father had dragged their small family to England, to suffer through the dreaded family reunion he hadn’t been able to wiggle out of that year. It had come at an awful time for him; he and Ivan had decided to tell his parents and brother that Christmas about their relationship, and even though he hadn’t known then, Ivan had had every intention of asking his father for permission to court him traditionally, with full intent of marriage. And even though they’d separated with drawn faces, tired smiles, and promises of a light-hearted reunion soon, Ivan hadn’t let something as small as _distance_ come between him and his determination to see his partner. He’d woken one morning, amongst the dreary London fog, with the sun all but nonexistent, to a phone filled with messages and missed calls from his lover.

            The most recent message had asked for his address.

            It had been from that first year, outed to his family at last, that he’d taken Ivan to the Winter Wonderland that his father had taken him and Matthew to when it had first debuted in ’06, fresh out of high school. He’d wanted his lover to see the familiar craft stalls and homemade food huts; the bouncing, speedy rides, warm hot chocolate, and good company was only par for course every year, but introducing it to his lover, everything had suddenly transformed into something spectacular before his very eyes.

            The second time they’d gone, it had been more of an accident. His father had dragged him and Ivan before the family – his grandmother, the matriarch, and _all_ the relatives, whoo boy – in what he hadn’t realized was a standard inquisition amongst the family. Somehow, in all the chaos that was the standard Kirkland family reunion, they’d volunteered to take the kids out to London, to see Winter Wonderland. Ivan spent the entire trip letting little, pint sized, British accented, slightly rowdy children drag him across the entire park, pointing things out to him in obnoxious, know-it-all tones as if he’d never been there before. Some of the older kids, and some of the younger teenagers that Alfred had spent most of _his_ teenage years babysitting, eyed him contemplatively, studying him. They were old enough to understand the implications of a family inquisition.

            The eldest among them then – maybe 14 to Alfred’s own 22 – came up to him after they’d been bundled up and ready to go home. She’d looked at him solemnly, with a twinkle of mischief that bespoke her father Reilly’s, nature, and said, “He’s good. We approve,” before skipping off, leaving him staring after her, bewildered and a tad startled.

            The third time happened when he and Ivan got drafted into moving his father back overseas to London, where he wanted to live out his luxurious retirement that his exceptional wealth would afford him, despite being only 50 odd years old. He’d escaped the chaos that was his father’s tyrannical demands, and dragged his then-fiancé out to Winter Wonderland out of sheer preservation.

            The fourth time was just for the hell of it. The two times after that were for the sake of creating a tradition of their own.

            The seventh time was not as merry.

            The seventh time, the Winter Wonderland of Hyde Park was celebrating its tenth anniversary – _god, was that how long it’s been_ – and its events, entertainment, and extravagance encountered exponentially increased enthusiasm amongst all its visitors. Bar one, so it seemed.

            Because Alfred was not joy filled and bouncing with excitement as he usually was. He was not dangling off of his husband’s arm, filling the chilled air around them with recounts of where they would be going, or what they would be doing, and what he so dearly wanted to try this time around, hearing the echo of his husband’s long-suffering sigh split the air as he bounced around the other man, so endlessly, incomparably _happy_.

            Because he wasn’t. Happy, that was; he was as far from happy as he could possibly get when someone tried to describe him. It was completely at odds with his usual demeanor; many people joked that if anyone tried to look in the dictionary to find the definition of extremely extroverted, bubbly, chirpy, happy, etc…they would find a detailed illustration of their lovely resident blond haired, blue-eyed American.

            His brother had made him a dictionary page for his birthday once, portraying the exact same thing.

            But today, Alfred was morose. He was brimming with grief, with angst, with despair, and nothing could quite snap him out of it. He’d wandered through London after he’d left his father’s house, and stumbled into the beauty of Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. Only, it wasn’t nearly as beautiful without Ivan with him.

            And that was the key, wasn’t it? That was why he was so unhappy.

            He sighed as he moved through the rides and attractions. The view was being overlapped with memories of old. He could see himself clutching Ivan’s arm as they were being seated, ready to launch into the Ice Mountain rollercoaster. He saw himself stumbling, with only Ivan’s own shaky arm keeping him balanced, as they got off of The Hangover’s drop, and dashing towards the Christmas Coaster, shaky legs, laughter and all.

            He transitioned, smoothly, but emotions churning, to some of the food stalls and the restaurants that were stationed across the entire park village. He passed the Bar Ice, where he could see the hazy figures of himself and Ivan, curled into each other, taking in each other’s warmth, as they sat in the chairs of ice and enjoyed specially made cocktails. He strode past the Bavarian Village, and saw the memory-images of all his cousins and their rowdy demands for Ivan to get them food and this and that, as he was held back by his older cousins and asked about GCSEs and A-Levels, and _did they have that in America_?

            Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the staff workers light a torch aflame before they set a fire pit on fire. He felt his whole body still and his mind was thrown _back_.

            _Flames_. _His mind almost couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. The heat coming off of the building was immense, rolling over anything and everything in its furious pathway. People who could were fleeing from the vicious blaze. Those who couldn’t_ …

_Alfred felt his body freeze as he rounded the street’s corner. He’d heard the screams – the shouts of “Fire! It’s on FIRE!” – from blocks away. But he hadn’t imagined…he hadn’t even **considered** , even as he drew closer and closer to the broiling blaze, that it was Ivan’s building that was on fire._

_But it **was**._

_All the air he had to scream was stolen from him by the simmering, steaming inferno. The small lunch bag he’d had in his hand – a cloth thing, gently knit, well insulated to keep in the heat, with gently stitched initials in the front identifying it as one IB’s lunch – fell to the cement of the sidewalk. He nearly tripped over it in his haste – in his mad dash forwards, desperate to get to the burning building – before arms seized him, hauling him back._

_He struggled, tripped again over the fallen lunch bag, and crashed down onto the concrete, which was broiling hot, as if it was lit aflame. He recoiled with a barely audible moan of pain, but arms clung to him again, pulling him up and dragging him **away**._

_**No!** he wanted to scream, **No, please! My husband’s in there!**_

_Only, he didn’t know where Ivan was. He didn’t know where anyone was. In his limited coherence, he’d barely been able to make sense of who had fled the building. Paramedics were treating people within a distance of the inferno, but there was a zone between them and the building that firefighters were bolting across to get into the building. Some had already come back out, dropping their unconscious passenger and dashing back into the blaze, without a single breath of fresh air._

_He only had the briefest moment in time to see the glint of pale, soot-stained ashy locks over a very familiar, unnaturally still face slung over the shoulder of a particularly bulky fireman, when the massive building groaned, structure weakened, and collapsed._

_He lost consciousness as the heat, ash, and debris washed over him._

            He was thrown from memory the moment someone walked in front of the gleaming flames and broke his line of sight. He stumbled slightly, pale and distraught, before he regained his earlier mood shield and drew it over him as seamlessly as he could. He couldn’t force more color in his cheeks, so anyone who knew him would know that he’d been upset. But that was okay; no one who knew him would be here today. Hell, he shouldn’t have been here today. But what else could he do? What else should he have done? Matthew had sent him packing to London to force him _away_ from the situation back home – which was something he simultaneously wanted to punch and hug his brother for – but except for his father, who he’d already seen, all his family was back in the states. Everything he was worried about, _everyone_ , were miles away. And he was walking the streets of Hyde Park in the dead of winter, without his husband, without his family, and without anyone with him for the first time in his _life_ …

            He screwed his face up, and bit the tears back.

* * *

            He’d made at least two full rounds around the park when a soft ringing from his pocket – almost completely inaudible with all the surrounding noise – jolted him from his memory haze as he was walking past the Christmas market. He slipped the phone from his pocket, equally curious and dreadful, and moved off to the side of the open walkways so he wasn’t blocking the road.

            “Hello?” he asked, voice a tad hoarse for unusual lack of use.

            A familiar voice answered on the other end of the call and his heart rate skyrocketed. He could feel the panic begin to race through his veins.

            “Katya?” he asked, “Is something wrong? Oh, god, something’s wrong. Oh god, I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Matt, oh god. I’ll be…”

            There was soft laughter, and the voice on the other end – his sister-in-law – tried to calm him down. If something were wrong would she sound so casual, she asked him. And he bit back the hysteria, but couldn’t answer. She sighed on the other end, before – and he could hear the smile in her voice – she pulled the phone away from herself and handed it to someone else.

            And then, it was like sunshine breaking through the clouds of misery and depression that had hung around him since the day he’d turned the corner and saw his husband’s workplace aflame; since the day the doctors had approached him and spoke to him about the possibility of cutting off life support.

            “ _Vanya_?” his voice was desperate, ragged, and hoarse, and he could already see people glancing his way in concern, especially when the tears he’d been biting back all night began to drip silently down his cheeks. But there was warm, albeit weak, laughter in his ears, and the soothing baritone, despite the hoarseness, dulled his senses to anything else.

            “Did you-,” there was some coughing, “did you go to the park without me, _dorogoy_?” the voice on the other end asked him hoarsely, and all he could do was laugh.

            “Y-yes,” he stuttered, “I-I’m sorry. Mattie shoved me on the plane, and Dad told me to stop drowning the house in misery, and this was the only place I could think of, only everything reminds me of _you_ , and I want you here, I want you safe, and _god_ , I thought you might’ve died that first time they pulled you out of the fire. _God_ , _Vanya_ , I miss you _so much_ ,” and he burst out crying in the middle of the Christmas Market, in Hyde Park, in London, thousands of miles away from his formerly comatose husband, who was laughing softly into the phone on the other end.

            “It’s okay, I’m glad you went,” he said weakly, “We always go. We should go later, when I get better.” Alfred tightened his grip around the phone, and dashed from the park, ducking onto the circle just outside of the entrance, and sticking his arm out for a cab, never letting go of the precious device in his arm.

            “We’ll go,” he said, firmly, and he could practically feel his husband smile from across the ocean, “I promise.”

            They never skipped a single year.

 


End file.
